


Secrets

by thornedcrown



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Almost smut, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Reader-Insert, S.H.I.E.L.D., S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Reader, She/her pronouns reader, Slow Burn, non-established relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2015-07-09
Packaged: 2018-04-08 11:03:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4302339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thornedcrown/pseuds/thornedcrown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You’ve never liked keeping secrets from Matt, but given your line of work, he's safer that way. You’ve kept your big, glaring secret from him the whole relationship, despite the difficulties. But pretty soon you find out he's been keeping some of his own, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Secrets

**Author's Note:**

> A fill for the prompt: “Can you do daredevil one where the reader is a S.H.I.E.L.D agent and Matt's girlfriend but they don't know about each other's work/nighttime activities and one of them found out and confront the other?”  
> Contains lots of mentions of eating/food, brief mentions of alcohol, heavy (canon-typical) violence and injury, and occasional heavy profanity. Reader is not explicitly gendered but has she/her pronouns used for them.  
> Fics can be found and requested here: http://thornwritesmcu.tumblr.com/

When you first moved into your apartment complex, one of the first things you learned was that your next door neighbor was blind. The landlords specifically used the jargon "visually impaired" - they were the kind of people who danced around using more blunt terminology, and while you could appreciate their sensitivity, their clear attempts not to make a complete ass of themselves, Matt himself made his jargon of choice very clear the first time you met him.

     "I'm blind," he explained, gesturing at his cane like you couldn't tell. Most people avoided jumping to conclusions in order to be polite, so he got right to it more often than not. "But I'm very used to it. Don't be scared off by the prospect of me being in the way."

     You grimaced, letting out a small "ohh" at his remark. He couldn't see your face, but he had a decent idea of what kind of an expression was plastered across it.

     "I wasn't worried about that at all. If you ever need help, though, I'm right next door."

     You felt like he probably got that a lot, but his smile in reply was very genuine and it made your chest swell.

     "Thank you. Oh - I didn't catch your name?"

     "(Y/N)."

     "Then I'll talk to you later, (Y/N). I'll let you get back to your apartment, the bags have to be heavy."

     The pair of you parted ways and you returned to your apartment to unload the grocery bags you'd been carrying. Fleetingly that night in bed it occurred to you that you never actually mentioned you'd been out grocery shopping - it would have kept you up all night if you didn't think that maybe, he heard the crinkling of grocery store plastic as it hung down heavy in your hand.

 

* * *

 

 

You invited Matt over for dinner a week and a half later. A part of it was the fact that you didn't know if he had anyone to cook for him, or if he'd mastered cooking while blind, or if he usually got take-out, or what. A part of it was the little inkling of a crush you'd sprouted on him, the way your heart fluttered a tiny bit when you saw him smile in earnest, how unbelievably cute he was and the way you were beginning to notice that. Either way, getting to know him would be beneficial to both of you. And if anything came out of that, you wouldn't be complaining.

     You spoke to him about it Wednesday - knocked on his door, to which he answered in a t-shirt and sweatpants (and to which you couldn't help but notice he was  _very_  muscularly defined,) and you asked him if he'd like to come over for dinner on Friday, and if 6:30PM worked for him. He said he'd be back from work at 5, so that should be plenty of time.

     5:45PM Friday, and you were nursing a black eye in your bathroom mirror. Work was an experience that day - a small raid on a small HYDRA base a few cities away. The mission itself wasn't as bad as you'd expected it to be, but you were caught off guard at one point and took a hearty elbow to the right side of your face. The skin around your eye was now darkly bruised and would take a lot of makeup to cover up with in the morning. But you weren't going to worry about how it looked for now - Matt wasn't going to be able to tell, so you'd take some pain killer to ease the throbbing in the side of your head and get to work making dinner.

     At 6:29PM, there was a knock at the door. You found it funny that he was exactly a minute early and the corners of your mouth turned up at that.

     "Just a minute!" You called out, putting a lid on the pan you were cooking at and hurrying to the door. Matt was on the other side - he looked more dolled up than he had last Wednesday, more the way he was when you ran into him in the hall. A lightly colored button up, a suit jacket, smoothly ironed pants. You wondered if he usually dressed this way for work - he looked very good in what garb he donned. Your eyes fell to his face, and subsequently to his mouth when you noticed his bottom lip was split, your brow furrowing when you saw it.  _What had he done?_

     "Come on in," you told him, stepping out of the way and allowing him to enter. He smiled at you - that genuine smile that put butterflies in your stomach - and stepped in.

     "Thank you for having me over." He had previously clutched his cane in both hands, but now used it as he walked into your apartment, scoping the way in front of him out as he moved.

     "No problem at all - I love cooking for other people, this is a treat for me." Your heart fluttered as he grinned broadly and ducked his head.  _Shit,_  he was cute. "Do you want to sit down? I can guide you to the dining room."

     "That would be great, actually."

     You moved closer to him - not quite closing the space between you - and outstretched a hand, hovering it above the space between his shoulderblades. It was hard to tell over the sizzling pan in the kitchen, but you thought you heard his breath hitch. That would be ridiculous, though - you hadn't even touched him yet. It was your own fleeting nervousness getting the best of you, you decided. "Can I put my hand on your back?"

     "Yes, absolutely."

     You did so, placing your hand gently on his back. This time your breath hitched, and you thought, out of the corner of your eye, you saw his mouth twitch up into the tiniest of smiles as you lead him to the table.

     Your apartment had a simple setup. Like all the other top-floor apartments, of which there were few, it had few separate rooms but plenty of floor space to make up for it. Your kitchen, dining room, and living room spaces had no walls dividing them; the left side of the room encompassed your living room setup, while the right had your kitchen and dining room setups. You lead Matt to the dining room table, where he could sit in relative closeness while you finished dinner.

     His cane knocked one of the wooden legs of a chair, and you immediately reached to pull it out for him. His free hand outstretched, feeling around, and when he was sufficiently comfortable with where he was, he sat.

     "I'm going to go finish dinner - it shouldn't take more than a few minutes, I'm almost done." You left for the kitchen as you spoke - you expected he could hear your voice moving steadily away from him, as he angled his head just slightly towards the kitchen. It probably helped him hear you better.

     You finished the last of what you were cooking and put together two plates, grabbing utensils from the drawer and returning to Matt. You set the plate gently in front of him.

     "I don't know how you usually do this kind of thing - is there anything you need me to do?"

     "I've got eating down pat, don't worry. Would you mind handing me the fork, though?"

     You set it in his hand, careful to keep the prongs from stabbing into him. One of his fingers ran along the fork as he worked out the shape of it in his head, and then moved to do the same for the plate. You watched with astute interest, but were careful not to linger too long.

     "Would you like anything to drink?"

     "Water is fine, thank you."

     You left for the kitchen again, this time to grab two glasses and fill them from the dispenser on the fridge.

     "It's tomato basil pasta, pan seared scallops, and roasted asparagus," you explained, returning to the table. He could already work out the smell of it, but you didn't know that. You just didn't want him to be surprised, or struggling to figure out what was on his plate.

     "Wow." He'd worked out in his head was most of it was, but hearing each individual piece spelled out put it more into perspective. You'd put a lot of work into this - the thought of it made butterflies rise up in his stomach and  _dammit Matt, not now, don't get all gushy and flustered because someone put together something nice for you_. People did this all the time, he couldn't be working himself into a mess over it.

     You watched his face, though, the way he bit back a broad grin as he began to eat, and it made your heart positively melt. God  _dammit_. You really liked this guy.

     "How is it?" You asked at last after having gone after your own plate, and he nodded, eyebrows raising and hand covering his mouth as he finished a bite.

     "It's good, it's really good.  _Thank you._ " Taste was no exception to his list of heightened senses, and what you'd made was wonderful; he was too genuinely grateful.

     "I'm glad." He could hear the broad grin in your voice and matched it with a smile of his own.

     Over dinner, conversation was mostly idle small talk - each was too focused on their own meal to say much of anything of substance. But when each of you were done, after you'd taken each of your dishes to the kitchen and returned to the table once they were safely in the dishwasher, you were able to talk more freely, and you were thankful for that.

     "Can I ask you something?" You inquired. You were blatantly staring at his mouth now, a worried expression on your face mirrored in your tone.

     "Sure, go ahead."

     "How did you split your lip?"

     "Oh." He'd forgotten you could probably see that - from Wednesday night, it was an older wound, less swollen and already starting to heal, so it surely looked worse than it felt. He wished he could tell. "I fell. It happens a lot."

     You clicked your tongue in sympathy, eyebrows knitting together. "I'm sorry - are you okay?"

     "Yeah, nothing else aches and Foggy said this was all he could see." He gestured to his split lip, mouth pressed into a tight smile.

     "Foggy?"

     "My friend. We work together."

     "Oh, I never did have the chance to ask you where you worked."

     "I own a law firm, actually. Nelson And Murdock. He's the Nelson."

     "Oh! I didn't know you were a lawyer!" You were genuinely intrigued - that was quite the job. Yours was, too, but he didn't need to know about that.

     "Yes, the firm is fairly new. But we stay busy."

     You hummed, nodding, although he couldn't see the latter, and then you changed the subject. "Listen, would you like to go sit on the couch? It's a little more comfortable."

     "That sounds nice, actually. Can you walk me there?"

     "Of course." You stood, pushing your chair in, and though you planned to offer a hand to help, you watched Matt do the same without trouble.

     One hand outstretched to you hesitantly. "Can I hold onto your arm?"

     "Of course." You said it a little softly, maybe a little fondly this time, and if he picked up on the change of tone, you couldn't tell. You held one arm out, bent, and with your other hand reached for his and placed it within the crook of your elbow. He likely always had trouble in new places, you thought, and fleetingly you wondered if he'd be spending enough time in your apartment to memorize it's layout. And immediately, you cursed yourself as your heart thrummed furiously against the cage of your ribs.  _Shit, stop that._

     As you walked, Matt used his cane despite your guidance once again; it allowed him, once you neared the couches, to separate from you and take a seat at one. You sat on the couch directly across from him. Between you was a low, glass coffee table, and to your left (his right) was a widescreen TV hung up on the wall that you and he wouldn't be needing. Sliding his cane together, he reached out to place it on the table in front of him - has he did you jerked forward, his fingers brushing a folder on the table with the S.H.I.E.L.D. insignia plastered in dark black across its front. Your hand reached out to snatch it away; immediately you wished you hadn't been so careless with it when you'd come home, but you were aching and had other things on your mind.

     "What was that?" It was a genuine inquiry, not accusative or sharp, and you blew out a deep breath in relief. Your heart was  _pounding_  as you stood, though, the folder's confidential and sensitive contents having made you forget for a brief moment that Matt couldn't actually read the folder or its contents and throwing you into a panic. And he could hear that, though you didn't know.

     "Files from work," you replied in earnest, walking towards your bedroom where there was a locked drawer in your desk you used to store things like this. You'd need to read it tonight - it was your mission briefing for tomorrow - but for now, it needed to be secure. "They're important, let me just put them away properly. Sorry, I shouldn't have left them out."

     Matt nodded slowly as you spoke, a deep frown on his face. But when you returned, he wiped it away, opting for a far more pleasant expression. You took your seat across from him once more.

     "I didn't get to ask, what do you do for a living?"

     "I work for a company that deals with a lot of data and intelligence," you replied. It wasn't a lie. "It's awfully boring." That was.

     "It seems to pay well." Your couch was plush and soft, clearly expensive, the one across from him seemed to be the same.

     "It does - it's the only reason I stay."

     "What would you have done otherwise?"

     "Uh - well." The question took you off guard. "I think I might have gone into engineering. I like the field. Biotechnical, maybe." You actually, more or less,  _did_  go into engineering. Though you were chiefly a field agent for S.H.I.E.L.D., you'd worked on some of their best tech. In fact, the only reason they had you as a field agent was simply because there wasn't a lock, digital or otherwise, that you couldn't pick.

     "That's interesting." He smiled softly at you and your heartrate picked up again. Shit. "Engineering seems like a nice field. I'd have trouble with it though, for obvious reasons." He gestured to his eyes and laughed, and you did, too.

     You talked for a long while more; it was less idle chatter now and deeper things, like exchanging stories and Matt touching briefly on things he'd been through being blind. Until you looked at the clock - 8:19PM. You decided to change the subject.

     "What time do you need to be up tomorrow?"

     "About 7, I suppose. Why?"

     "It's just getting kind of late. 8:20. I didn't want to keep you."

     "Oh - I need to call Foggy and go over some things before I sleep, maybe I should go."

     You stood, smoothing out your shirt. "Do you need me to walk you to the door?"

     Truthfully, Matt didn't. He hadn't even needed you to walk him around the apartment in the first place, but he did need to play  _normal_  blind - not  _"uses his heightened senses to 'see' a world on fire"_  blind. He couldn't show you that side of things for a long,  _long_  while. Maybe never.  _But,_  while he could potentially get away with saying he had your apartment worked out by now, he did like the little touches, the gentleness of it and the contact. Now  _he_  was the one with a little sprout of a crush.

     "That would be great, actually." He stood, too, and you rounded the table between you, taking his hand and repeating what you'd done at the dining table.

     "I'll walk you to your apartment." You walked with care, not too slow but not too fast, and lead him from your apartment to his own. It was only a few feet away - maybe  _thirty_ tops. The doors to the penthouse apartments were spaced further apart than the ones on lower levels, but they were still hardly far at all.

     Once you reached his door, you allowed him to pull away his hand to fish his keys out of his pocket. There were only a few, all with covers of varying colors, and when he ran his thumb across one of them, you realized each cap had braille printed onto it. He got through two before he finally found the house key, unlocked the door, and pushed it open, to which he moved just enough to stand in the doorway and face you instead.

     "We should do this again sometime."

     Your face absolutely lit up - you couldn't help but grin stupidly, and you were sure he could hear it in your voice, but you didn't care at this point. "We should! We should. Maybe next week, same time, if you're available?"

     "That shouldn't be a problem. Here, hold on. Do you mind if I get your number?"

     "No, of course not." You were giddier than you should have been, but he just  _asked for your number_.

     Fishing around in his back pocket, he pulled out an iPhone, and with a few clicks of the buttons, activated Siri. "Add contact," he spoke into the phone, and the phone began to reply back. He input your name, and when it asked for a number, he held it out to you. Hesitantly, you rattled your number off into the phone, and Matt took care of the rest.

     Once his phone was pocketed, he smiled softly at you, and you bit your lip through a smile in return.

     "Thank you, again, for having me. It was nice."

     "No, thank you for coming. I really appreciate it. I - yeah, we should do this again some time. Let me know what works for you, okay?"

     "Absolutely. Goodnight, (Y/N)."

     "Goodnight, Matt."

     Retreating into his apartment, he shut the door.

 

* * *

 

The next Friday was the same routine - 6:27PM this time, just a hair earlier, while dinner had just been finished not ten minutes earlier. This time, it was a cut on Matt's cheek. You didn't wait to bring it up.

     "What happened to your cheek?" You asked as he entered.

     "Fell again." He laughed sheepishly, almost embarrassed, and you couldn't help but smile. That wasn't too bad - not as bad as your bruising ribs and split lip from practically getting the shit beat out of you when you were outnumbered on the job two days ago.

     "You've  _got_  to be more careful, Matt."

     "Blindness is a hazard," he replied, tone light. "Can you walk me to the table again?"

     You nodded. "Yeah." You reached for his hand again, placing it gently in the crook of your elbow once more, and walked him there. He recognized the surroundings, you could tell as he was less cautious about sitting at the table this time.

     "Dinner's already done. Greek pasta with feta wine sauce, and lobster."

     " _Lobster!_ " He laughed, wholeheartedly bewildered. "I can't believe you spent money on  _lobster_  for me."

     "My job pays  _very well_ , I told you. Oh, and there's a cheesecake in the fridge for desert. I didn't make that, though." You brought the plates out, utensils in hand, and held the handle out on one of the forks to Matt. "Here, fork."

     He took it, running his fingers along it again. "You're spoiling me at this point."

     "Maybe a little bit. But I like spoiling cute boys. Water again?"

     "Yeah." His reply was a little quieter, this goofy grin on his face and color in his cheeks. You were glad you'd crossed the line and opted for blatant flirting, you thought as you took two glasses from the island counter in the middle of the kitchen and went for the fridge again. If you had known flirting meant seeing such  _horribly_   _cute_  expressions on him, you'd have started doing it sooner.

     Returning with his glass, you set it down and took your seat across from him. "The lobster isn't in its shell, by the way. I didn't think that would be such a good idea."

     "I appreciate that," he replied, finally eating now that you had sat down and joined him.  _God,_  he was really getting spoiled.

     After a while, he spoke again. "Where did you learn to cook?"

     "The internet, mostly, though I have some experience with helping parents and what not."

     "This is  _really good._ "

     "Well I'm glad you like it." You didn't know what Matt usually did for food, and you had been tentative to broach the subject, but this time, you decided to speak up. "What do you normally do for meals?"

     "Microwavable things, mostly. Sometimes Foggy brings food, sometimes I order from places that will deliver. Sometimes I cook something simple. Sometimes we eat at the office. Same with lunch. Breakfast is... occasional."

     "You should let me start cooking you breakfasts."

     Matt scoffed. "Please, now you're really spoiling me."

     "What did I say? Cute boys, remember?"

     He ducked his head, that color back on his cheeks as he bit his lip through another splitting grin. "Yeah, I remember."

 

* * *

 

This became routine. Matt was over for Friday night dinners at 6:30PM weekly, usually still in his work attire, and you spent good money on spoiling him with the best recipes you knew. You'd memorized his cologne of choice by now and had started wearing a little something yourself for when he came over, and while he no longer needed you to walk him around his apartment, five or six weeks later, he still liked to hold onto your arm when you walked him back to his apartment.

     Over dinner one night - crab and cheese gnocchi this time, a new recipe for you - the subject turned to work.

     "Foggy and I have a pretty big case next week," he remarked, fork becoming idle as he favored speaking over eating.

     "Yeah? How do you think you'll do?"

     " _Very_  well. There's a lot of evidence in our favor. And it's for a very big name client, too, who I'm absolutely certain is being wrongfully accused. This could be a lot of publicity for us, (Y/N). This could be a huge break for the firm."

     You grinned broadly, almost stupidly in your pride. He was doing so well. "That's  _wonderful._  When's the court date?"

     "There's going to be a session held on Tuesday," he replied. "If it's not settled then, it'll probably carry into Friday."

     Friday was dinner night, though. "Will you let me know?"

     "Yeah, of course. I wouldn't cancel plans without telling you."

     You smiled softly at that. "Alright.

Tuesday evening the next week, and you couldn't help but curse at Matt's inexplicably awful timing. You were in the middle of quite the chase in downtown Manhattan - you'd only just disappeared around a busy street corner with your partner, slowing your pace as you two melded into the crowd and into a crowded restaurant, when your phone began to buzz. You swore quietly and reached to answer it.

     "Hey, Matt, what's up?" As you brought the phone to your ear, your partner looked at you in disbelief, mouthing to you -  _"Seriously?"_  - to which you mouthed back, with significantly more urgency,  _"Shut up."_

     "Are you busy?" You could hear the concern in his voice. "It sounds loud. Did I catch you at a bad time?"

     " _No_ , no, I'm not busy at all. Just running errands downtown. What's going on?"

     "I was just calling to tell you that Foggy and I have a court case on Friday that's probably going to take all day. So I'm going to have to cancel dinner on you."

     You almost wished you could sound disappointed, but this case had been big to Matt. "No, that's fine, work is work - that's very exciting, you got the case! Good luck!"

     "Thanks. I'm confident about it, but... we could always use it." He paused. "I'm free Saturday, however, if you'd like to do something then."

     "That sounds wonderful, actually!" You paused. "Actually, how about I take you out for dinner? Somewhere nice."

     There was a beat of silence on the other end and your heart started hammering hard against your ribs. Was that over the line? Maybe he didn't want to go somewhere nice. Maybe he was content just being friends who ate dinner together at home maybe once a week, but not more than friends who went to nice restaurants on dinners alarmingly resembling dates.

     "I'd love that, actually." He was grinning. You could hear it in his voice. After a moment, he asked, with slightly more hesitance, "Is this a date?"

     "Yeah. I'd call it that. It's a date. I'm asking you out on a date, Matt Murdock. How does dinner at 6 sound?"

     "6 sounds perfect." Yeah, he was still grinning.

     "I'll see you then?"

     "Alright. See you then."

     You hung up first, your partner looking at you in complete bewilderment. "Did you just schedule a date in the middle of a mission?"

     "Yeah. Give me a sec." You were only the slightest bit distracted, turning away from them and approaching the host of the restaurant at the podium (who'd been eyeing you with distaste for loitering in such a nice establishment's lobby since you two first entered.)

     "Can I help you?"

     "I'd like to make reservations for Saturday, if that's alright?"

 

* * *

 

The first time you met Foggy Nelson was that Saturday night. The walls of the apartments weren't  _thin,_  so to speak, but enough so that, from outside Matt's front door, you could hear voices. You could barely tell the voices apart, let alone tell what they were saying. But you knocked, all dolled up in your nicest dinner dress, and the voices stopped.

     A few moments later, an unfamiliar face came to the door, and you smiled politely. You'd made a point of covering up the bruise on your jawline thickly with makeup, and you were relieved to see his eyes didn't fall to the spot it use to show plainly. "Hi, is Matt there?"

     "Yeah, he's getting ready - hi, you must be (Y/N)." He stuck out his hand, and you shook it firmly. "I'm Foggy. Matt has  _not_  stopped talking about you."

     "Foggy!" Matt's voice called from a distant room, sharp and warning. Foggy grinned and you returned it.

     "Here, come on in, he'll be out in a sec."

     You entered the apartment, looking around at its set-up so similar to yours. This was the first time you'd been in Matt's apartment, it occurred to you, despite all the times he'd been in yours. It was sparsely decorated, probably easy to maneuver around in. Foggy padded through the apartment to a different room, presumably where Matt was. You could hear their voices once more, occasionally discerning their words.

     "You didn't tell me she was cute."

     "Foggy, please!"

     "I'm just saying! You can't see her, I have to reassure you."

     " _Hilarious_ , Foggy. Which one?"

     "The red."

     "Is it on straight?"

     "Yeah."

     "Everything's good?"

     " _Great._  Go get her."

     You smiled fondly - Matt and Foggy were clearly very close and you loved that, loved hearing the banter between them and learning more about their dynamic with every second. Matt was out not a moment later; you almost always saw him in a suit but somehow you still marveled at the look of him in it.

     "You look wonderful," you remarked, very nearly breathless. It was a well fit suit, dark with a white button up beneath and a red tie that popped. Still he wore his sunglasses, which you frankly had always thought framed his face quite well.

     "Thank you." He ducked his head just a little, hiding his small, abashed grin. "I'd say the same for you, but..."

     "She looks great," Foggy cut in, assuring Matt again. Then he turned to you, his voice smaller but still earnest. "You look great."

     "Well. What time are our reservations for?"

     "6PM. It's halfway across town, so..." You looked briefly at your phone in your purse. 5:15. "We should be making good time."

     Matt crossed the room briefly, feeling along the wall for his cane where he'd left it, and returned to you when he had it.

     "Shall we?"

     As was routine, you bent your arm and guided his hand to the crook of your elbow.

     "You kids have fun," Foggy remarked lightly as you guided Matt out of the apartment. "I'll lock up before I head home."

     "We will. Nice meeting you, Foggy!" You replied, waving with your free hand as he shot you a "You too!" before you closed the door.

 

* * *

 

"Foggy's sweet." As you started the car, you glanced to Matt in the passenger seat, his cane between his legs and his expression fond.

     "I'm lucky to have him around."

     You began pulling out of the parking garage, twisted in your seat as you backed out and then driving forward to the city streets.

     "Is he staying in your apartment for the night or something?"

     "Hmm? Oh, no, he came over to help me get ready." Matt sounded almost sheepish, and you beamed. "I can handle myself just fine but he insisted on coming over to help. I mean, I don't exactly to colors well." He ran his fingers gently over his tie. "So maybe it was for the best."

     "I'm glad I got to meet him." He was sweet - you could see why Matt was friends with him.

     "I think he came over to meet you, too, to be fair."

     You laughed. "He mentioned something about that."

     Matt gave a thin smile, chuckling softly. "Yeah?"

     "Yeah."

     You made decent time to the restaurant; it was deeper into Manhattan, not in the Hell's Kitchen district by a long shot, but your car went into park in the garage across the street at 5:49, giving you plenty of time to walk across to the restaurant.

     "I'll get your door," you said hurriedly, rushing out of the car with your keys and purse in hand. You opened Matt's side, to which he smiled gently up at you, and he pulled himself out of the car. Once you'd guided his hand to your elbow, you walked.

     You pushed the door to the restaurant open and what little hints of it Matt could catch before fully washed over his senses - the smell of expensive foods, the quiet sound of guests and a live band, and a host greeting you. He was floored - you were probably spending a small fortune on him here.

     "We have a reservation for (Y/N) at six," you replied to the host, who graciously lead you through the tables. They sat you down at one that, to the best Matt could tell, was right about in the middle of the restaurant, and right as Matt was about to speak up about the menus they were attempting to leave you, you did first.

     "Do you have any menus in braille?"

     "We don't, I apologize." The host grimaced. "I'll put a word into management about investing in some, however. Deeply sorry for the inconvenience - is there anything we can do to make your evening easier?"

     You frowned, worrying your lip between your teeth as you shot a glance to Matt. "I could read it to you, I suppose."

     He gave you that tight-lipped smile, and nodded, and you turned your worried frown back to the host. "We're fine for now, thank you."

     The host nodded, and left, and immediately you turned to apologize to Matt. "I'm  _so sorry_  - I wasn't aware they were so inaccessible."

     "I've been to establishments with worse, believe it or not."

     You left out an almost horrified laugh. "God, really?"

     "There's this burger joint in west Hell's Kitchen with no braille menus anywhere, and not a single employee looks like they know what you mean when you ask them to read the menu out loud. Or any that do it terribly coherently."

     You scrunched your nose up. "That's horrible."

     "People are alarmingly unaware of how blindness  _actually_  works. I had a deaf man once ask me if I know sign language."

     "God!"

     He laughed at your reaction. "He was able to read my lips, though. It worked out fine."

     You smiled softly, turning your attention to the menu. "What are you in the mood for?"

     "Pasta, I think."

     As you scanned through the menu, you came to the section in question and began reading off what dishes they had. You saw him perk up at the mention of tomato and basil - you remembered how much he liked it the first night you ate with him, and you paused there, giving him a heart-meltingly fond smile.

     "Does that sound good?"

     "Yeah."

     You smiled softly and began looking through the menu yourself. You'd never eaten here, of course, only stumbled in due to your mission gone awry. Most of it looked unfamiliar, or you couldn't work out how it must have tasted, and eventually you decided you'd get the same thing as Matt. Your own version of the dish was one you made often; you liked tomato and basil flavors, and you figured, at such a nice restaurant, it was probably better than your own recipe.

     When your waitress arrived a few minutes later, interrupting idle chatter with Matt, she offered something to drink. You asked Matt briefly if he drank - a little bit, he replied, which was about the same for you, and you ordered on of the moderately pricey champagnes off the menu, Champagne Charles de Cazanove. No thousand dollar bottle of champagne, but regardless, thank god Matt couldn't see how much you were dropping on the bottle alone.

     She returned with it not long after and you were able to order once she'd poured your glasses. One was going to have to last you all night, so you decided you'd hold off on nursing it. When the waitress disappeared, Matt's hand found its way to his glass and he took a drink. You couldn't help your endeared expression when he hummed.

     "I don't get to have champagne often," he admitted, setting the glass down. "A couple of times at our old law firm there would be formal events where they served it but it was only once or twice."

     "Where did you work?"

     "The Landman and Zack firm. We were interns. Worked defending a lot of corrupt corporations. It's why we ended up leaving in the end."

     You nodded, understanding.

     "It gave us the chance to start our own firm, though," Matt continued. "I'm glad we left."

     "You two seem to be doing well there. And you enjoy what you do, don't you?"

     "Yes, very much."

     "Good. I'm glad."

 

* * *

 

When your waitress brought your check, you were beyond thankful Matt couldn't see the pricetag on it. You hadn't meant to hit triple digits, though it was probably the champagne - this restaurant would have to be a rare occasion, then. Just because S.H.I.E.L.D. paid you generously, didn't mean you wanted to be dropping so much on dinner.

     Matt didn't want to say anything about the check, either. Though he knew it must have been horrible - he heard your heartbeat skyrocket shortly after the waitress brought the check out - he didn't want you to think he was worrying about how much you'd spent on him. He was, he absolutely was, but he didn't have to  _say_  anything.

     By the time the two of you finally resolved to go home, the New York skies had opened up and a light rain beat the concrete outside. Under the overhang of the restaurant, you and Matt remained dry. Somewhere in your bag was a small umbrella - big enough to keep you both dry if you pressed close.

     "Here, hold on." You broke away from his arm just enough to fish through your purse; the umbrella was settled at the bottom, and with some work, you tugged it out, undid the velcro holding it together, and opened it.

     "An umbrella?" He asked, hoping to verify what he heard.

     "Yeah. Here." You held the umbrella in your right hand, the same arm Matt had been holding onto. With your left, you gently took his arm again and guided it back to where it had sat, where it had spent a lot of time the last few weeks in the crook of your elbow. And once he was holding on firmly, you stepped out into the rain.

     Water beat your umbrella from above, but the two of you, pressed close together underneath it, stayed, more or less, dry. Matt had had quite a few drinks - you'd barely finished your glass by the time the two of you left, the slow intake meaning your body hardly felt a thing, but Matt had at least three over the course of your meal and you hoped he wasn't struggling at all to walk. He seemed alarmingly good at keeping himself upright - your suspicions were, unfortunately, confirmed when he tripped over his feet once halfway down to the garage, but even without your help righted himself quickly. His balance was remarkable for a man who, over the the several weeks you had known him, had turned up with visible injuries he claimed were from four separate falls.

     When you found yourself under the cover of the parking garage, you lowered your umbrella, shook it out, and partially collapsed it, holding it in your left hand for the remainder of the walk to your car, all while keeping Matt's hand in its place on your arm. A short minute later, and you were at your car, opening the door for Matt.

     His hands ran along the side of your car as he slid himself into the passenger seat, finding its contours and mapping the vehicle to enter it like he had when you first left that evening. You threw the umbrella on the floor of the back seat to dry and set your purse on the seat itself, before rounding the car and entering the drivers side. You cranked the heat as soon as the car was on - you were freezing, hands and nose especially.

     Once you'd backed out of the parking garage and gotten yourself into the streets, you couldn't help but notice the way Matt's hand rested palm-up, partially on the middle console, like you'd had past dates to you do in a movie theater when they wanted to hold your hand. You couldn't help but smile softly, and moved one hand away from the wheel to lace your fingers gently within his. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw him bite his bottom lip to try (and fail) to hide a broad smile.

 

* * *

 

Friday night dinner had become a routine for the two of you, unless one of you was working. Your missions had gotten a lot more frequent - there was a lot of crime in Hell's Kitchen, and while the newspaper's favorite masked devil did an awfully good job of keeping it in line, he was only one person. As HYDRA's influence in New York began to wane, you found yourself moved to other jobs; while the average mafia wasn't exactly S.H.I.E.L.D.'s style, you did manage to find yourself caught up with a few sects of Hell's Kitchen's most famous crime rings that found themselves with artifacts they really didn't need to have their hands on. You'd had to cancel your weekly dinner date with Matt a few times so that you could finish a mission - he always seemed to understand. Late nights at the office or important meetings seemed to go unquestioned by him.

     He, on the other hand, had done his fair share of canceling as well, rare as it was; court cases sometimes took all day, client meetings sometimes cut into dinner. You tried to be equally as understanding - while you missed his company those nights, the two of you made up for it by pushing dinner around to whenever was more convenient. Days you weren't working mid-day missions, you often brought lunch to the firm, claiming you had a light day and could afford to take a few hours for lunch. And add onto that the occasional mid-week dates the two of you took, you had no shortage of Matt's company throughout the week, and that was precisely how you liked it. Over the past five months since you first asked him over for dinner, you two had fallen into a very official relationship.

     You had long since stopped sitting on the other couch when you and Matt moved from the dining table. Tonight was no exception, his head cradled in your lap as you spoke softly to each other, you tracing patterns on his chest - words you wondered if he could decipher, your fingertips mostly spelling out his name and confessions of love, sometimes coupled together. After a moment, you paused. He still had his sunglasses on; he never removed him, and that was understandable, given his situation, but you couldn't help but wonder what he looked like without them.

     "Can I take your glasses off?"

     His eyebrows raised in visible surprise, but after a beat of silence his whole face softened into a heart-meltingly fond expression, and he nodded. Your hand moved from his chest to his glasses, carefully removing his glasses and folding them up, leaning forward as much as you could with Matt where he was to place them on the coffee table. Finally, you were able to look at him without anything obscuring his face, and your breath hitched.

     Matt was  _horribly_  handsome even with his glasses on, but seeing him without made your heart swell. He had the  _prettiest_  brown eyes, just barely catching the dim light of your apartment, irises looking like mahogany in this light - like solicitous and home-steady sureness. One hand rested on the side of his face while the other continued to run its fingers through his dark hair; one thumb stretched up, your whole hand shifting, the pad of your thumb tracing the soft crinkles at the edge of one eye, his mouth pulling into a warm, deeply genuine smile.

     "I love you so much," you whispered, quiet but still audible, still with intent of being heard. One of his hands reached up to rest over yours, keeping it on his face while you studied it; your hand shifted just enough for your thumb to move, tracing over one of the healing cuts on his cheek from the week before. Another fall, he'd told you. It looked like he was healing well, and you were glad.

     Suddenly, Matt pulled away, and you moved your hands to give him room as he sat up with little warning - you wondered fleetingly if you'd done something wrong, if you shouldn't have touched the injury, but almost as quickly as he'd separated he turned to face you again, one leg tucked up underneath him as he scooted closer. His frame leaned in and, hesitantly, one hand found its way to the side of your face. Your heart thrummed.

     "Can I kiss you?"

     You nodded softly, knowing he could feel it with his hand on your cheek, and leaned in, your hand returning to its place on the side of his face as you kissed him.

     Kisses with Matt were always sweet and soft; he liked to take his time with you, though if you were being frank, things never really got heated. You were content to just move your mouth along with his and just exist quietly with him, drinking him in in the most innocent way you knew how. Something, though, spurred you a little further that night. Kisses became open-mouthed and you ran your tongue along his, earning a small noise out of him, and with the encouragement you found your hands wandering, fingertips dancing across his back and making him shiver.

     Somewhere along the way he parted his mouth from yours - you couldn't complain, though, when his mouth moved along to your neck instead, gentle there but getting a rise out of you. His hands rested on your hips, soft as ever and unwandering at first. Fingertips inched up your sides, making you shiver, the pads of his fingers tracing gentle patterns in the flesh between your ribcage and hipbones. He was careful with you, slow as to not tickle or startle you. You hummed, low and pleased, and Matt matched the sound.

     Your hands, fingers dragging along his torso and eliciting a shudder, moved to his tie, slowly undoing it. It took some work - ties weren't the easiest to undo when you weren't used to working with them and your fingers fumbled briefly, but eventually succeeded. Then your motions stopped.

     "Matt."

     "Hmm." He pressed one last kiss to your neck before resting his forehead on your shoulder, fingers pausing.

     "Is this okay?" You fiddled nervously with the ends of the tie, it hanging loosely from around his neck with the ends between your fingers. "Can we do this?"

     "You mean..." His left thumb began idly tracing patterns in your side again, and your eyes fluttered shut once more.

     "I wanna make love to you, Matt."

     With his close proximity to you, you could  _just_  hear his heart hammering, and your words only made it quicken. He separated from your shoulder and moved to kiss you properly, lips right against yours as he mumbled, "Please do."

     You freed his tie completely now, hucking it haphazardly towards the coffee table as your hands slid back to his chest.

     "We should move to the bedroom."

     "Walk me there."

     You separated from him, and he from you, your hands falling to his and fingers intertwining tightly as you stood. Slowly you moved - he walking forward with you in front of him, walking backward and guiding him to the bedroom. You knew your apartment well enough, to the point that maneuvering backwards from the couch to the bedroom door was no particular challenge. And yet still, in your distracted state, you managed to collide back-first with the door frame, letting out a yelp.

     "Are you okay?" Immediately Matt's arms moved to your sides, voice dripping with concern and eyebrows furrowed together, and you couldn't help but laugh.

     "Not paying attention," you muttered breathlessly, and Matt frowned, rubbing soothing circles in your sides till you moved again, readjusting your path and taking his hands back once more to lead him properly into the room.

     Through the evening darkness, everything bathed in a dark lilac and highlighted by the golden lights of the city peeking through your closed curtains, your eyes struggled to adjust. But, even through the darkness, you could maneuver well enough to slide your hands to Matt's hips, slowly turning with him, switching places so that his back was to the bed and you could ease him back onto it. You stood, one knee on the bed against his leg with the other between his legs, and found his hand reaching up to rest on the side of your face. Yours reached up to hold it there.

     "I love you," he whispered, and you ducked down to kiss him.

     He was able to scoot back onto the bed and you watched him lay his head on his pillow before you gently crawled up to him, straddling his hips slowly. Your hands  _finally_  got to work on his damn top, now half untucked and more of a nuisance than anything. When the buttons were undone, he pulled his torso upwards, supporting himself with his arms so that you could untuck it fully. But as you began sliding it off his shoulders, you stopped, scowling. His torso was littered with bruises, scrapes, scars and cuts. Some too fresh. Most looking like they didn't come from a simple fall.

     "Matt, what the hell." Your voice was breathy, coming out worried and disgruntled as your hands traced what looked like it had once been a particularly bad gash. His face was nearly unreadable, mouth pressed into a thin line. He ducked his head down.

     "I get careless sometimes," he muttered, pushing himself up to be able to sit without the support of his arms so that one hand could come to yours and hold it in his to keep it away from his torso. "Forget my limits. Let myself get clumsy."

     "Matt, this doesn't look like something you get from  _being clumsy._ "

     "Well, I would tell you why they look like that, but I can't exactly see what you mean." He laughed softly, trying to diffuse the situation, but you remained adamant.

     "If something like this ever happens again, you know you can call me, right?" Your hands went to the sides of his face, thumbs stroking his cheekbones. He closed his eyes. "I worry about you so much, Matt. If you're ever seriously hurt in an accident, you have people to turn to."

     "I know." His voice was barely above a whisper. "I know. I'm sorry."

     You ducked down, gently kissing his mouth again, and he shrugged from his top before leaning back on the bed. You followed, and when his back was flush to the mattress, you pressed a kiss to the tip of his nose before you leaned back again, making him beam. It took you only a moment to pull yourself out of your top, and then you were back down with your mouth on his, Matt's hands wandering about newly exposed flesh and earning a small noise from the back of your throat.

     "I love you," you murmured against his mouth, saying it again between kisses. "I love you. I love you."

     "God, I love you too."

 

* * *

 

You began to wake when sunlight from the crack in the window hit your face dead-on and made you scrunch your eyes together, twisting in bed to bury your face in the crook of Matt's neck. He began to wake when you stirred.

     "'Morning," he mumbled, voice thick with sleep. You hummed against him.

     You were there for a long while before finally separating, propping yourself up on one arm and training your eyes on Matt. One hand moved gently to the side of his face and his mouth twitched into a small smile; you traced your thumb gently, slowly along his lips in reply, and sleepily, he kissed the pad of it.

     After a few moments of idly watching him, his breathing slow and his whole expression so earnestly peaceful, you moved away to check your phone on the nightstand, careful not to disturb him too badly. You realized you'd left it on silent the night before when you checked your notifications - shit.

     Three missed calls from Coulson.

     Sighing, you swung your legs around the side of the bed and walked quietly to your dresser, slipping on a fresh pair of underwear, and crossed the room again to grab Matt's button-up and slide it on over your shoulders. It was a little big on you, hanging down to just the top of your thighs - you liked that. As you did up a few of the buttons, you exited the room.

     On the coffee table was Matt's tie, phone, cane, and glasses. You figured he'd want the cane when he woke - while the rest of your apartment was familiar territory, your bedroom was not. You grabbed it, and returned to the bedroom. He hadn't moved an inch since you left.

     Gently, you leaned the cane up against the nightstand and ducked down to press a kiss to his jawline. He smiled at that.

     "Your cane's against the nightstand," you told him, running your fingers through his hair. "I'll go make breakfast."

     He hummed. "You're too good to me."

     "Nah." You smiled fondly, ducking down to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth, and then separated. Stopping only to grab your phone, you left the room.

     Once across the apartment in the kitchen, you felt it high time you call Coulson back. He picked up after just two or three rings - you felt bad having missed him three times when he got to it so quickly.

     "Welcome back to the land of the living, Agent (L/N)."

     "Hey, thanks," you mumbled, sarcasm lacing your tone.

     "Are you alone?"

     "No. I mean - alone in this room. Not in the apartment."

     "Not secure enough. I'll be brief. There's been an 0-8-4 in Philadelphia, we need you on the job this afternoon."

     You groaned. "That's two hours from here, Coulson."

     "You and your partner are the closest qualified agents we have. You two will need to leave Manhattan by 4 - get in touch with them. This is important."

     You nodded, frowning, though he couldn't see either gesture. "Alright. How long do you think it'll be?"

     "We don't know. Prepare for a week, at least."

     Shit. What were you going to tell Matt?

     "Your partner will have more details."

     "I understand."

     "Good luck, Agent." He hung up, and you hung your head, gently thunking it against the counter. Now more than ever you wished you could just be open with Matt about your stupid job. But equally so, now more than ever you realized what a risk that was. You were  _so_  close - if he knew anything about your double life, he'd be put in worlds of danger just for information he'd have. It was bad enough he could be used against you. You should have had the judgment not to get so close to someone so vulnerable, but you were so irrevocably in love with him at this point there was nothing more you could do but protect him.

     You got to work on pancakes, hoping to distract yourself from what the afternoon would hold. It was 10AM - or nearly so, anyways - when you looked at the clock. Though you wanted to spend time with Matt all day, your less than six hours would have to suffice.

     By the time Matt finally meandered out of the bedroom, wearing his bottoms from the day before and padding across the apartment with his cane in one hand and the other covering his mouth as he yawned, you were already nearly done with breakfast.

     "I'm over here," you called out, giving him some direction, and he found his way to you with a small smile on your face.

     His hands connected with your waist as he ducked down to press a kiss to the skin that joined neck and shoulder, pressed directly up behind you.

     "So that's where my shirt went," he murmured against your skin, the smile audible in his voice as he kissed it again.

     "Good morning, sleeping beauty." You felt him smile against your neck at the comment. "Breakfast is almost done. Go ahead and go sit down."

     He nodded, shuffling over to the table; he didn't need his cane much anymore to maneuver your apartment, and you smiled fondly at the fact that he'd been spending enough time here to have it all but memorized. Coming out of your bedroom had taken some work, it seemed, but now he hardly even used it as he ran his hands along your countertop to guide himself to the table.

     Minutes later you were at the table with plates, setting them in their usual places. "Pancakes and scrambled eggs. Do you want syrup?" He nodded and you disappeared into the kitchen to grab a bottle. "I made coffee, too, do you drink it?"

     "I could smell it. Could I get some?"

     "Absolutely." You set the syrup bottle on the counter and reached into the cup cabinet for two mugs. "How do you take your coffee?"

     "One part cream and one part sugar."

     Doing up the mugs, one his way and one yours, you carried them out to the table and set them down in their respective places before turning to grab the syrup bottle.

     "How much syrup?"

     "Just a little."

     You did as he asked, setting the bottle aside before ducking down to kiss the top of his head. "All done."

     "Thank you," he murmured, hand reaching out to find your own. You gently grabbed his hand, and you couldn't help but beam widely when he brought it up to his lips, pressing a long, lingering kiss to your palm. "I love you."

     "I love you too. And you're very welcome," you replied, quiet, and ducked down to kiss him properly.

     Once you'd sat and both of you had begun to eat, a silence fell over the whole of the apartment. It didn't start as tense - you two usually spoke sparingly when you ate, dining in relative peace and quiet. But eventually it got too thick for you to handle - you had to talk to Matt about the phone call.

     "So I got a call from my boss this morning," you said quietly, eyes trained on your plate.

     "I heard you talking to someone," he replied. He'd heard the whole conversation - you couldn't know that, though. It worried him, dread having sat festering in the pit of his stomach ever since you had the conversation. He knew a lot less about you than he thought and now it was becoming painfully clear that you'd been keeping secrets from him for a reason. It would be hypocritical of he of all people to hold it against you - but he still couldn't help but be bitter, and scared.

     "Yeah, there's, uh - there's been a security breach or something client side of some kind, I have to drive down to Philadelphia to take care of it tonight. I don't know a lot about it, though."

     "Will you be gone all night?" He knew the answer, but he wanted to hear it from you.

     "I might be gone all week, actually," you admitted, voice barely more than a mumble.

     "So no dinner Friday?" He sounded genuinely disappointed - he was. It made your stomach sink.

     "Probably not. I mean - maybe. I don't know. I'll let you know, okay? We can call every night while I'm gone, if that works for you?"

     "That sounds good." He was silent for a long while, picking at his food, before he spoke again. "When you get back, I want to talk."

     You frowned, heart hammering. That was never a sentence you wanted to hear. "About what?"

     The way your heart pounded echoed in his ears, and he felt  _so_  guilty about bringing it up that way. "Your work. I just - I don't know anything about it. I want you to tell me about it."

     You remained quiet for a moment, biting your lip. Matt deserved to know. You didn't want secrets in this relationship. "Okay. It's complicated, but we'll talk."

     "Okay."

 

* * *

 

When your partner called to tell you they were here, you told them to wait for you in the parking garage. You'd been packing a small bag for the last hour - mostly just gear for the job, trying to prep for the worst. Your partner explained to you that you may have to go further than Philadelphia in the end - but S.H.I.E.L.D. would be covering all the transportation beyond that. The likelihood that you'd be spending a week away from home got greater and greater with every detail of the mission you received.

     Before you left, you stopped at Matt's, rapping your knuckles gently against his door. He'd gone home earlier in the afternoon to give you a chance to pack - you promised to see him before you left.

     "Matt, it's (Y/N)." You didn't want to catch him off guard when he answered.

     Moments later, he opened the door, changed from his clothing from the night before that he'd gone home in to the sweatpants and t-shirt you often caught him lounging around in. You smiled softly.

     "Hi. I'm about to leave."

     "It's about that time, isn't it?"

     You gave a small 'mhmm' in reply, and he reached for your hands, opening them so that you could place yours in his.

     "Kiss me goodbye?"

     "Of course." You reached up to kiss him, and when your mouth met his he shuffled a little closer, letting go of your hands despite the fact that he just got ahold of them in favor of putting his hands gently on your waist. Yours went to the sides of his face.

     "I love you," he murmured against your mouth before separating properly. "Call me tonight when you get there if you can, okay?"

     "Okay. And we're going to call every night, right?"

     "Right."

     "I love you. I love you a lot, Matt." You sounded nauseous, worried, and he knitted his eyebrows together and gave you a thin smile, a poor attempt at being reassuring.

     "It's just going to be a week. Maybe even less. It's not that long - it'll be fine."

     "I guess." You shrugged haphazardly, still feeling sick to your stomach. You didn't want to leave on this mission - every single one could be your last and you'd been trained to accept and prepare for that, but the thought that you might die now that you had Matt to worry about you made your stomach churn harshly.

     "What are you worried about?"

     You considered telling him everything right there and then - it would have to come out eventually but maybe if you spilled your guts and told him about everything you'd been hiding at last, you'd feel better. Your throat closed up. You knew you wouldn't. It would only make things worse.

     "Nothing. I'm just stressed," you replied, though it was a bald-faced lie, and even if he couldn't hear the way the pulse fluttered when one lied and the way the inflection changed just a note, he wouldn't have been fooled.

     "Come here." He opened his arms up, gesturing for you to hug him, and so you did, burying your face in his neck and breathing him in deeply. You liked the way he smelled - the way he always carried a faint hint of his cologne and the smell of spruce from one of his soaps or deodorants, the way he sometimes carried the smell of the office home with him and the way the smell of paper and ink sometimes lingered just enough in his clothes for you to smell it when he was close, and the way he smelled like something you couldn't place, like something unmistakably  _him_. You stayed there like that for a long while, arms tight around each other, gently swaying occasionally.

     Eventually he parted from you, making you begrudgingly drop your arms to his side as his hands moved to your shoulders, working gentle, soothing circles into your skin.

     "Call me when you get there," he repeated. "I want to know you got there safe."

     "I will," you promised. "And we'll call every night."

     "Exactly. I love you."

     "I love you too."

 

* * *

 

Your partner could hear the ringing on the other side of the phone pressed against your ear just barely over the noise of the radio. You weren't there yet - you were only just pulling into Philadelphia then, and it would probably be another 15 minutes before you reached your destination, but you knew as soon as you were out of the car, you wouldn't be able to call Matt. This was as close as you could get to letting him know you arrived safely.

     Eventually he picked up. "Hello?"

     "Hi." Your voice was soft, a small smile on your face. "I got there okay."

     "Good. I'm glad. What's the situation?"

     "We haven't met with the client yet," you reply. "But from the looks of things, it's probably going to be a few days. I'll keep you posted."

     "Okay. I'll let you go so you can get to that, then."

     "I love you."

     "I love you too. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

     "Alright. Bye, Matt." You hesitated, your chest tight and putting you on the verge of tears, and you murmured one last "I love you" before you hung up. Your partner said nothing.

 

* * *

 

You didn't talk to him tomorrow. You didn't talk to him for two days, in fact, too busy to so much as look at the phone. The work was a distraction from Matt - it was intensive and dangerous and required your full concentration, so you didn't find yourself with a sinking stomach over the fact that you'd have to tell Matt what you'd been keeping from him and instead keeping your thoughts occupied elsewhere.

     The second night, you texted Foggy. It was 3 in the morning; you knew he wouldn't get it till he woke. But you couldn't call Matt, and you needed to get word to him somehow.

[SMS - To: Foggy] Hey Foggy, could you let Matt know I'm okay? I haven't been able to call and I'm sorry for that but I'm okay. Thanks.

     A text waited for you when you woke in the morning with barely six hours of sleep under your belt.

[SMS - From: Foggy] Hey, no problem. He said to tell you it's okay. I said you owe us big time since you're not bringing lunch at all this week.

[SMS - To: Foggy] You're hilarious. I'll bring breakfast sometime too when I get back.

[SMS - From: Foggy] Can it be homemade? Matt keeps saying you make the best food.

[SMS - To: Foggy] You tell Matt that what we do in the privacy of my apartment stays in my apartment. And maybe. I'll talk to you later, Foggy.

     You were finally able to call Matt on Wednesday. At last you had a brief moment of repose between working and sleeping, and you couldn't think of a better way to spend it. His answer came after a few rings.

     "Hello?"

     "Hi, Matt," you replied with a small, fond smile.

     "Hi." His voice became soft, endeared upon hearing your voice. He sounded sleepy - you hoped you hadn't woken him.

     "I finally had some time. Work has been - work has been hell."

     "I'm sorry. Do you know when you'll be coming home yet?"

     "Not yet. But soon. I'll tell you."

     He gave a small 'mhmm', and you imagined him nodding.

     "How have you been?" You asked. Foggy, while you loved talking to him, hadn't been helpful in actually acting as a medium of conversation between you and Matt. You were dying just to talk to him.

     "Good. Busy too. Work is really picking up. My shoulders are starting to ache."

     You clucked your tongue. "I'll give you a back rub when I get home."

     "You're too good to me." You could practically hear the sleepy smile in his voice.

     "Nah."

 

* * *

 

Your phone rang harsh in your ear as you sat on the edge of your bed Thursday night. Matt never took this long to pick up.

     Finally, you connected only to voicemail, and you sighed harshly, disappointed. His voice, at the least, was soothing, if only marginally.

      _"Hi, you've reached Matthew Murdock - I'm unable to answer my phone right now, so if you could leave your name and number after the tone, I'll get back to you as soon as I'm available. Thanks."_

      _Beep._

     "Hi, Matt, it's (Y/N). I was just calling for the night but I guess it's awfully late so you're probably asleep. And I'm sorry if I woke you. Um, I'm definitely going to be missing dinner tomorrow. And I'm really sorry for that. But I think I'll be back late Friday - and I mean,  _late_  Friday - so when you're able to call me back, let's make plans for Saturday. Let me know you're okay when you get this, ask Foggy to text me if you have to. I love you. I love you lots. I'll see you Saturday."

     You hung up, worry in the pit of your stomach. Matt very rarely didn't answer. In fact, only once or twice over the course of your relationship had he neglected to answer - and only when he couldn't reach the phone on time. So you sat staring at your phone. It was  _late_  - you needed desperately to sleep, but if Matt called you back in the next few minutes like you wanted him to, you wanted to be awake. Ten minutes passed. Nothing. You were forced to resign, and crawl into bed. But you still couldn't help but hope he'd call back anyways.

     There were text messages waiting for you when you woke, all from Foggy. Reading them, you felt your throat thicken in horror.

[SMS - From: Foggy] Hey (Y/N), Matt got your message. He told me to tell you he was in bed early last night, he had a really bad fall and was sleeping it off. He looks worse for wear right now but it's nothing too bad.

[SMS - From: Foggy] We don't think he has a concussion but he hit his head pretty bad so we'll keep you posted on that. Also, he said Saturday works, and he's excited to see you.

[SMS - To: Foggy] Oh my god, is he okay right now? Do you think I should come home early?

     You didn't think that would be possible, but you could try.

[SMS - From: Foggy] No, that won't be necessary, he's doing pretty okay now. He's at the office and he's doing alright, he said to tell you not to worry about him.

[SMS - To: Foggy] Okay. Tell him I'll call him when I'm on my way home.

     You spent the rest of the day feeling sick to your stomach.

 

* * *

 

You couldn't possibly have gotten home fast enough. Thank god Coulson didn't want you out of Philadelphia - the situation was easily contained where it was and, despite how busy you were, it was easier to manage than some of your missions. Just long, and tedious, and painstaking, especially once you knew Matt had been hurt. But around the time 1AM rolled around, you were finally able to crawl into the passenger seat of your partner's car, joints stiff with fatigue.

     A few minutes into the drive, you tried to call Matt like you promised. No answer, only his comforting voice telling you to leave your name and number again.

      _Beep._

     "Hi, Matt, it's (Y/N)." Your voice was thick with exhaustion, but you kept it together, despite nearly falling asleep with the phone to your ear right then and there. "It's late so I know I'll be home before you get this, but I'm on my way home right now. I'll be home soon - I love you a lot. Just so much. See you in the morning."

     Hanging up your phone, you let your head rest gently on the side of the car, and you dozed.

     It only felt like minutes between then and when your partner began gently shaking your shoulder in the parking garage of your apartment building. You hummed, scrubbing the sleep vigorously from your eyes. Home.

     "Go get some sleep in a real bed," they told you softly. "We shouldn't have missions for the next couple days. They'll give us a break after that hell."

     You nodded, pulling yourself out of their car. "Thank you for driving me. I appreciate it."

     "Hey, no problem. Go tell your boyfriend I said hi."

     You couldn't help but smile at that, pulling your bag from their back seat and waving goodbye as you trudged towards the elevator.

     You were far too exhausted for the stairs. The elevator ride to the top floor was long enough, but being on your feet began waking you up. Your joints were still stiff, your body still ached, but you didn't feel so much like a walking corpse anymore by the time you got to your floor.

     Dragging yourself into your apartment, you locked the door behind you, keys throne haphazardly on the small end table by the door, and your feet managed to carry your body, albeit heavily, into your bedroom.

     You could have collapsed on the bed right then - but your uniform was caked in sweat and blood and dirt, and the last thing you wanted was to soil your sheets with it. Slowly you began to undress - top first, peeling back the darkly colored thick fabric of your jacket. Just the motions of getting out of your jacket was hard; your joints ached from exhaustion, and your body was littered with bruises. Not to mention the good grazing you'd got from a bullet on your side still hurt, and pulling at it made you hiss. But soon it was off, and you discarded it onto the floor.

     That gone, your hands went for the hem of your white tank top, but you froze, motionless, your blood running cold when you heard a large thud coming from Matt's apartment.

     You stood for a moment, not sure what to do. Maybe you'd imagined it - maybe it came from downstairs and you incorrectly pinpointed it. And then came another, less loud but equally as jarring, and assuredly from Matt's apartment right on the other side of your bedroom wall.

     You didn't even hesitate to act. Even still mostly in uniform, boots and all, you bolted for your door, grabbing your keys on the way out. Your feet carried you to Matt's apartment door, and you banged on it.

     "Matt? Are you okay?"

      _Shit._  On the other side he was very likely bleeding out, and you coming across him beaten half to death was the last thing he needed. Mind bleary, he tried to pull himself to his feet, but crashed again. You heard that, too.

     "I'm fine, (Y/N)," he called, but he wasn't. He didn't even sound remotely fine - his voice was weak and almost difficult to discern, not with sleep but with injury, with hurt.

     You fumbled with your keys, fingers searching for the copy he'd given you, and once it was in your hands, you were unlocking his front door.

     "I'm coming in, Matt," you called, though you figured he could already tell. He swore softly, trying to drag himself up. He didn't need you to stumble across him like this.

     You hurried into the living room of his apartment, and the first thing you saw was an open window leading out to the fire escape. The first thing your mind came to was an intruder - your eyes flickered around the apartment, lit just enough for you to see by the harsh LED display right outside the window Matt had mentioned before, searching desperately for someone out of place. You didn't have your gun on you, but that didn't mean dick for whatever assorted criminal made the mistake of climbing into your boyfriend's apartment - even in your stiff-jointed, exhausted-beyond-belief state, you were still a well trained, combat ready S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. But when your eyes didn't hit anyone out of place, you felt even more uneasy than you would have if you did spot someone.

     "Matt?" Your voice was small, scared, and he made a noise from the floor, hidden by his own seating arrangement. You rushed to find him collapsed on the ground, mask over his eyes, donning an outfit you'd only ever seen in papers. Your mind was screaming.  _What the fuck._

     "Matt, oh my god." Your knees hit the ground harshly as you rushed to his side, the floor of his apartment colliding with bruises there, but adrenaline of fear kept you from feeling it much at all. Your mind was  _screaming_  - you didn't know how this happened, how bad it was, what you were going to do, why this happened, why Matt was dressed like the Devil of Hell's Kitchen, what any of this meant about Matt and about the two of you. Gently, you placed your shaking hands on his torso; you weren't sure what you wanted to accomplish from it, perhaps to gage the situation, but he groaned, trying to move away from your touch and only making things worse for himself, so you jerked them away.

     "Matt, holy shit. Talk to me, Matt."

     "Hey, (Y/N)." He coughed and you winced, giving a smile caught somewhere between relieved, terrified, and on the verge of crying all at once.

     "Matt, I'm gonna lift you up." You reached for him, struggling to lift him off the ground. He groaned, hissing in pain as you did, but eventually you got him to something resembling a sitting position, slumped forward against you. His blood stained the floor of his apartment - not enough for you to call it a  _pool_  of blood, per se, but enough to be sticky against your hands and taste like copper in your mouth and in your lungs and for the stench of it to practically suffocate you.

     Against you, Matt was nearly completely unconscious - he'd been hazy prior, in and out, but now he was nearly completely down for the count and your main concern was just taking care of him. Putting all of your weight into it, you stood, pulling him with you - you wound up supporting nearly all of his weight, but he maintained enough consciousness to try and support himself, and to walk when you guided him the few steps to his couch and managed to sprawl him out across it.

     You slumped to the floor once he was settled, taking a breather for a brief moment and sagging against the couch itself with your arms still draped over him, too distracted with your lungs heaving for air to think about moving them. You could barely think about anything, for that matter - Matt was very probably dying here on his own couch, and you couldn't make sense of any of it.

     "Matt."

     He made a small noise in his throat in reply, and you frowned, lip trembling.

     "Matt, I'll be right back."

     You stood, forcing yourself to your feet and moving quickly. Your first stop was to shut the window - it was starting to grow cold in the apartment, and the last thing you wanted was to worry about temperature on top of injury with Matt. You could see his blood trailing from the window to the floor. It made you sick to your stomach.

     Next was out the door and sprinting back into your apartment. S.H.I.E.L.D. had issued you several first aid kits, which you kept around your apartment and your car, and you thanked the organization internally. They weren't standard kits found in a local Target or a Walmart, but contained instead more advanced medical supplies you were, thankfully, trained to use. You'd need most of them. Yours was under the cabinet in your bathroom, and once it was in your hands, along with a heavy amount of extra bandaging, you ran once more back to Matt's apartment.

     He was still on the couch when you returned to him - it didn't look like he'd tried to move in the brief 30 or so seconds you'd been gone, thank goodness. You didn't know how much more damage he'd cause by trying to get up.

     As much as you appreciated how easy it was to see with the bright eyesore of a sign outside illuminating everything, it wasn't enough - it took you a moment to search for a lightswitch, but eventually you managed to illuminate the whole living room and you moved to Matt's side, kneeling down beside him and wasting absolutely no time getting to work.

     Your hand went to peel the mask back from his eyes, uncovering him and casting it aside. He'd long since closed his eyes, but his expression looked anything but peaceful. Most of the wounds were on his torso - that made things easier for you, and you slid a hand under his back.

     "Matt, I'm going to sit you up so I can take your shirt off."

     "Yeah. Okay." He attempted a nod and you accepted his confirmation, lifting his back from the couch, careful to support him and not let him hurt himself as you moved him into a sitting position. Your hands moved to untuck his shirt from his pants - it was a good material, form fitting and stretchy and clearly good for athletics, but provided absolutely no armor. This would explain the "fall injuries" that always looked too deep and too grave.

     Getting the shirt over Matt's head took a lot of work - once you had him moving he was able to help a little more, jarring him from his mostly unconscious state, and you were able to get it off of him and expose the heavy injuries on his chest before tossing it aside and focusing instead on the injuries on his chest. He looked  _bad_  - several gashes from knife wounds, one place in his side where he seemed to have gotten  _actually stabbed_ , a bullet wound in his shoulder (you prayed for an exit wound,) too many bruises to count. And that was just what you could see  _on his torso_. Your stomach churned.

     "Matt, holy shit, how did this happen?"

     He groaned. You noticed a forming bruise on his throat; words were clearly hard for him, but he tried anyways.

     "I guess you wouldn't believe me if I say I fell?"

     "Matt, this isn't funny." Normally you'd have laughed at one of his jokes but  _god_ , not in a situation like this. Your hands fumbled for the first aid kit, and you found a pair of latex gloves within it, tugging them on. The more you looked at the extent of his injuries, the more you realized he'd probably need to go to the hospital.

     "God, Matt, maybe I should call an ambulance."

     " _Don't_." You'd never heard him speak with such urgency and it made your chest clench. "I can't go. They'll know who I am then, they'll match up the injuries and then you're in danger and Foggy and Karen are in danger and I  _can't_  go to the hospital."

     You swallowed hard against a lump forming in your throat. "Okay," you replied quietly, voice barely above a whisper. "Okay, we won't."

     This was on you now, then. You fished around in the first aid kit for something to stop the bleeding - that would be your first priority. Most of this would require stitches, and you had to hope and pray the bullet had left an exit wound, or else things were about to get a little more difficult. It was going to be a very long night.

 

* * *

 

For a few brief moments of repose, nothing hurt when Matt awoke. And then  _everything_  did.

     A gut-wrenching noise caught in his throat as his back arched off the couch, senses overwhelmed by the pain practically covering his body and brain delirious. He struggled for a moment to place where he was - it was familiar but the assault on his senses was clouding his judgment and his chest tightened briefly in panic, till your hand settled gently on one of the least injured areas.

     "Matt."

     He breathed deeply, settling back on the couch - everything still hurt, but it was some comfort, at least, to know you were there. It gave him a moment to rethink, identifying his apartment and racking his brain for memories of the night before.

     You were quiet for a long while, watching him breathe deeply with a pained expression on his face. Within the kit was heavy pain killers - you'd get him some food and put him on those in a moment. At last he exhaled deeply, closing his eyes, and you frowned.

     "I'm sorry," he murmured, and you looked away.

     You felt like you should say something, but what were you supposed to say? It wasn't okay, you weren't going to tell him not to worry about it. This was on a whole different level.

     "So you're the Devil of Hell's Kitchen," you said after a long while. It wasn't a question - you knew the answer at this point. It was a sharp, cold statement.

     "Yeah."

     "So I expect this means you're not actually blind." Your voice cracked trying to push the words out, tone bitter and hurt. "That's one hell of a lie, Matt."

     "No, I'm - I am. Since I was nine. You've heard the story."

     "So a man who's been blind since he was nine goes out and fights crime? Despite the fact that he can't  _fucking see?_ "

     "(Y/N),  _listen to me._ " His eyes were open now, but they remained fixated straight ahead on nothing at all the way they always did. You frowned, fidgeting quietly in place, but remained silent.

     "When you lose one sense, others... they try to make up for it. You hear better or smell better or feel things more sensitively. I woke up in the hospital with bandages over my eyes and everything was  _loud_. I could hear  _everything_. A conversation across the hospital, my father's heartbeat, the footsteps of nurses running in to calm me."

     Your heart hammered in your chest, and you swallowed hard.

     "I can hear the way your pulse picked up when I started telling the story."

     "So you do what you do because your ears pick up the rest of the world when your eyes can't."

     "All my senses are like this. To some extent, it's... probably at the fault of the chemicals that blinded me in the first place. But everything is so beyond human levels, (Y/N). It's overwhelming and it's terrifying. And it lets me experience the world in an entirely different way. Every detail of it. Far beyond what a sighted person could have."

     "And you decided you were going to fight crime because of this."

     "It started out stopping an abuser when the police wouldn't do anything. It just... escalated. The police don't always get the job done. Someone has to protect the people of Hell's Kitchen."

     You were at a loss for words. You had thought your secret was bad - this was on a whole different level. But Matt deserved to know. He trusted you with his story - you had to trust him with yours.

     However, he spoke before you could. "I can also tell that there's a wound in your side."

     You swallowed thickly. "How?"

     "Blood in the air. Not my blood."

     You glanced down at your side - through your white tank top, blood had began to spot through. It must have reopened over the night. Maybe while you were rushing to keep Matt alive. Maybe while you slept restlessly on his floor beside the couch.

     "Yeah. Got shot."

     He was quiet for a moment. "You didn't go to Philadelphia to fix a security issue with a client."

     "No." You spoke softly, quietly. Voice laced with guilt. "You heard the conversation I had on the phone last Saturday, didn't you?"

     He nodded.

     "I work for the government," you began. "A department known as S.H.I.E.L.D.. Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division."

     "And what does that mean?"

     "It means someone really wanted our initials to spell out 'S.H.I.E.L.D.'."

     He laughed, and you smiled at that, though your expression still remained heavy with concern.

     "We handle the weird and the dangerous. The things the public can't know about and the rest of the government isn't equipped to take care of. The Avengers Initiative - that was us."

     He nodded in understanding as he listened. "I can understand why you couldn't tell me."

     The tension in your chest eased a little with how well he was handling this. He wasn't mad - you wished you could have said the same about how you reacted to his tale.

     "Philadelphia was a mission to deal with some alien technology we couldn't identify. We weren't the only ones there - a neonazi organization named HYDRA has been giving us trouble, but they were after the same technology. That's how I got shot. And beaten and bruised on a whole."

     "And that's why you couldn't call the first few nights."

     "Too busy fighting and working on containing the technology."

     He nodded. "How long have you been doing this?"

     "Six years. I'm very good at what I do." You paused. "How long have you been doing what you've been doing?"

     "Almost a year now. But I've known how to fight and how to do everything I can for a lot longer."

     "When Foggy said you fell on Thursday night, was it a cover for this?"

     Matt nodded.

     "Does he know?"

     "Not yet. I don't know if he ever will. You wouldn't have if this hadn't happened."

     You frowned. "I would have figured it out eventually."

     "Maybe." He shifted on the couch, but found himself wincing in pain as he moved something wrong. Your hand settled on his chest to ease him down.

     "Hey, don't move. You've got bruised ribs and half a dozen stitches. Don't make it worse."

     He nodded. "I don't suppose you have any pain killer, do you?"

     "Some pretty high grade stuff. You'll need to eat first. Stay here." You stood from where you'd sat on the floor, moving to go look through his kitchen for something to feed him. Halfway across the apartment, you stopped. "Hey Matt?"

     "Yeah?"

     "I love you. A lot."

     "I love you too."

**Author's Note:**

> Fics can be found and requested here: http://thornwritesmcu.tumblr.com/


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